Vitex negundo L.

DeFilipps, Robert A. & Krupnick, Gary A., 2018, The medicinal plants of Myanmar, PhytoKeys 102, pp. 1-341 : 101-102

Vitex negundo L.

Names.

Myanmar: kyaungban-gyi. English: five-leaved chaste tree, Indian privit.

Range.

Southeastern Africa, Madagascar, eastern and southeastern Asia, Philippine Islands, Guam; naturalized in Florida.

Use.

Fruit: Used as a sedative.

Notes.

In China the stem-twigs are decocted for burns and scalds, and a twig infusion is used for anxiety, convulsions, cough, headache, and vertigo; the leaf is astringent, sedative, used for cholera, eczema, and gravel; the fruit for angina, cold, cough, deafness, gonorrhea, hernia, leucorrhea, and rheumatic difficulties; the root for colds and rheumatic ailments. The plant is also said to prevent malaria, and is used for bacterial dysentery and chronic bronchitis ( Duke and Ayensu 1985). The medicinal uses of the species in China, Indo-China, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Palau are discussed in Perry (1980).

The leaves are bactericidal and insecticidal, and yield essential oil with aldehydes and ketones, phenolic derivatives, and cineol ( Duke and Ayensu 1985).

Reference.

Nordal (1963).